***THIS BOOK WAS PROVIDED TO NERD GIRL IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW***

Synopsis

Unfulfilled in his marriage and life, Alex Sterling makes an indecent proposal to his wife, Angela, which sets them off on an erotic adventure of self-discovery, revealing dark and repressed parts of themselves. On the verge of losing everything that is most important to him, Alex is a man in early life crisis, playing a high-stakes game and going to extreme measures to save what he values most. Is he going through a mental breakdown or is this some sort of spiritual transformation? He has no idea as his grasp on reality crumbles and all his worst fears are inevitably realized.

Sex God: an erotic adventure of self discovery is Matthew Armstrong’s first work of fiction.

There is a lot going on in Sex God, and some of works and some doesn’t. The idea that two people can go into a relationship for the wrong reasons or lose their way but then find themselves and one another again definitely works. Unfortunately, Mr. Armstrong threw everything but the kitchen sink into his story, and the aforementioned relationship message can get lost.

Angela and Alex are married with two children. They have a struggling business that allows them to just cover their expenses. What they don’t have is passion and intimacy. Alex spends a lot of time flirting with waitresses and fantasizing about them. He doesn’t act on the fantasy out of fear of losing access to his children. Not much is revealed about Angela until the very end of the story. Her little revelation is not explored in depth. There are a myriad of secondary characters that aren’t developed at all: swingers, dominatrix, swindlers, Camino de Santiago pilgrims, and Russian businessmen.

The variety of secondary characters mirrors the diverse plot points in Sex God. Horny, confident Alex gets a figurative slap in the face when his proposal of an open marriage back fires. Alex runs from wanting to explore his sexuality to exposing Angela and himself to blackmailers, to walking the Camino de Santiago and exploring chakras while doing so. The mixture of a typically Catholic pilgrimage and Yoga/Eastern philosophy didn’t work for me. The jump to a convenient, holistic and happy ending felt abrupt. The bottom line is that the story felt very choppy and the characters’ path to self discovery was disjointed, random and minimally explored.

Matthew Armstrong shows promise. With a better editor, he has the potential to be a good storyteller. Armstrong has a lot of interesting ideas from which to cull premises for a variety of stories, and he doesn’t shy away from taboo topics. I am hoping that Mr. Armstrong continues to explore fictional writing.